While we already know the world's first quad-core tablet will be the ASUS Transformer Prime, we just got a glimpse of the first quad-core phone. It's rumored to be called the HTC Edge, and the hardware sounds completely beast.

4.7-inch 720p display

1.5GHz quad-core Tegra 3 processor

1GB RAM

8MP f/2.2 lens

10mm thick

There is one small detail that you may have already noticed: capacitive buttons. Of course, that doesn't mean this phone won't come with ICS right out of the gate, it just means that it won't take advantage of on-screen buttons.

According to PocketNow, we could see this device hit stores in late Q1 or early Q2 of next year, though carrier info is nowhere to be found.

Does knowing that quad-core phones are right around the corner make you hesitant to pick of any of the dual-core devices expected by the end of the year?

I agree, Tom. I actually really like HTC's designs. I was upset they didn't have much of their style in the Evo 4G. My wife's Evo 3D looks nicer than my 4G.

E.J.Su

I am glad there are buttons. I prefer buttons don't take up my screen resolution.

Randy

Are you serious?

Software buttons means the screen can be larger, and then those buttons can disappear when they aren't necessary, giving you MORE room on your screen.

Brandon

Nope, wrong.

The onscreen buttons turn into little dots. The space is still taken up.

level380

You do know that a 4.7" screen with capacitive buttons is going to have MORE screen area than a 4.65" screen with virtual buttons, even when the virtual buttons are hidden!

Your point of giving more room on the screen, isn't valid

behelit

I like the design but if the got rid of the buttons ICS style, it would be amazing.

Nocturnhabeo

eh w/e man they skin the crap out of the OS so that they don't have to worry about on screen buttons. I kinda like it that way so that I don't lose the buttons some how if someone codes a terrible app. Saying that ICS UI looks cleaner than Sense now... D: not sure what I am going to do...

4.7" Screen and no on screen buttons means this thing will be even more gigantic. At least the G Nexus is more along the lines of the 4.3" phones because of the on screen buttons.

Iambeast

If anything, it'll be the size of the Galaxy Note with a smaller screen size. The note has extremely thin bezels so the two phones will probably be pretty even.

Nocturnhabeo

except for the quad core

Brandon

Drool...... Makes me hesitate a bit about the GNexus certainly..

Dragonithe

That looks AWESOME.
And about the capacitive buttons, maybe the render is from before the conformation of on-screen buttons in iCS.
So they could be changed on the final product.

Sp4rkR4t

Hardware buttons, no beats logo, don't believe it.

Chris

Chances are this render and design was made before ICS was released, and before Beats was acquired by HTC. I doubt they need to make very many marketing renders at this point, so they're probably not kept up to date.

While it was long-rumored that ICS would have onscreen buttons, I doubt HTC's development branch is allowed to make design changes based solely on rumors.

Likewise, including Beats before the deal was sealed would be jumping the gun. Yes, the Sensation X-series already has Beats, but it was slapped into an existing phone design, and we have no guarantees HTC will be so obnoxious with every Beats-enabled phone once it's established its ownership of the brand.

Six or more months out, it may morph quite a bit between now and then as HTC engineers get to play with ICS and the branding guys slap a Beats logo on it.

Desi

I rather see phones with more RAM than to have quad core.

My two cents

Randy

1GB of RAM isn't enough? My phone has 512MB and that's enough for me. 1GB should be fine.

Nocturnhabeo

He has a point but android never fills up 1gig so it is somewhat moot. The phone has the capacity to out strip that gig quickly however right now apps won't do it because it is standard. In 6 months 1gig might not be enough.

Tomcat

Why would HTC suddenly switch to Nvidia processors? Theyve sticked with Qualcomm for so long and even waited with their first dual core phone until Qualcomm's own dual core processor was ready for the public release, while all other phone makers already used the Tegra 2 for some time ...

HTC doesn't compete with Sammy or Moto. It only competes with itself, and it wins.

If the specs are true, this is envy-inducing.

Chris

Those three terrible words: "WITH HTC SENSE."

Mr. Mark

implying roms wont be developed.

Chris

They will be. But it'll take time. It's HTC so the bootloader should be unlockable, but it'll take at least a month, if not a few, until stable ROMs from the major developers are released.

Nocturnhabeo

They will have a few sense remixes out fast but things like CM won't make it on for probably 3 months as stable released if the Thunderbolt is anything to go by

James L

Large screens win!!

Logan

Not at all hesitant, Software makes or breaks these phones, the Galaxy Nexus will be competitive for a solid 6+ months and, thanks to updates from Google, relevant for another year+ after that.

Brian

Exactly my opinion as well. I'll take guaranteed updates from Google for a while and then when those stop developers will be sure to hook up the Nexus devices. Cool looking phone but I'll take the G-Nex for sure.

That's a great looking phone. Might have to consider the GNex as a rental.

paul

4.7 inch screen this getting beyond a joke, whats next a 6 inch mobile phone, all the latest android high end phone are 4.3" or bigger where are the 4" or 4.2" phone

J

I was thinking of possibly getting the Rezound, but... If its true, and quad-cores will be out by/around summer... I suppose I could convince myself to hold off for a few more months.

'Course on the other hand.... If we put off buying new hardware, just cause something better is right around the corner.... When would we ever buy something? I'm sure when these quad-core'ers ship, we'll be hearing about 6-cored phones....

Though like a few others here have already mentioned, they need to lose the buttons (4.7 screen + buttons is just too much)... Bumping the RAM up to 2GBs would be nice... Have NFC, Barometer AND an SD card, and anything else that pops up between now & then.... Personally I don't care if it adds a little extra thickness to the phone... I'd rather have a fatter phone & all the goodies, than to sacrifice functionality just to keep it RAZR thin. Also, which I'd assume now will be standard on this caliber of phone... 4G please. And please... A battery that'll last ~18hrs of moderate-heavy use.

boe

It wouldn't matter to me if this thing had 16 cores if it dropped calls as frequently as my HTC EVO 3D did. I need my phone to be a phone above all other things. My previous Sprint phone didn't drop calls and neither does my current Sprint phone.

I tried 3 different EVO 3Ds shipped from Sprint, one from a store in Culver City and one from a store in Tucson. What a waste of my time it was listening to people say "just wait for a patch, I'm sure HTC will come out with a fix - two and a half months of unnecessary dropped calls and pissed off clients.

Get your house in order HTC and someday I'll consider coming back but frankly I love my current ET4G and even though my last 4 phones were HTC, I'm in no rush to go back.

Mike Brooks

my thunderbolt never drops calls, ever.......
sounds more like a carrier issue.

jjrudey

I'd take the Galaxy Nexus over it.

Mr. Mark

yeah but can the galaxy nexus play crysis?

Txsrooter

ahh..I remember when the big fight was when HTC removed the Chin from Android...

Gorgeous design and specs... though, i'm still getting my Nexus because.... well, it's Google's and because it has no buttons... just a SCREEN :D

Rob

"Does knowing that quad-core phones are right around the corner make you hesitant to pick of any of the dual-core devices expected by the end of the year?"

Nope, I just bought an awesome single-core phone last week!

Chris

What I wonder is why the Nexus line has shifted from the vanguard of a new level of performance to the rear-guard.

When the Nexus One was released, it was the first 1 GHz phone out there, its specs were top-of-the-line, and everyone scrambled to play catch-up. It was the vanguard of the 1 GHz superphone. Yes, later phones beat it in performance, but not by enormous amounts until the release of the dual-core generation.

Then the Nexus S came less than a year later, bringing up the end of the 1 GHz phone generation. Dual-core phones were already rumored, and indeed released in the form of the Atrix shortly after. The Nexus S rocked the same processor Samsung had already been selling for a half-year in its Galaxy S line, and hardly featured anything 'new' aside from NFC.

The Galaxy Nexus is an admitted improvement. It's different from the standard Galaxy S II line, at the very least bringing qualitative screen improvements to counter the increasing size of mobile screens. And yes, it's the first dual-core Nexus phone. But it still comes as it seems the dual-core generation is topping out.

Yes, I understand that in the world of technology, something new is ALWAYS waiting in the wings, and that a year from now we'll be talking up the upcoming hexa- or octo-core designs from Taiwan and South Korea. And there is something to be said for Google releasing its new Android versions on stable, proven hardware to reduce bugs and improve optimization.

But there was a time when the Nexus line was meant to push the boundaries of hardware across the board. For the sort of early adopters and developers the Nexus line is supposed to be aimed at, it seems rather unusual to be placed at the rear-guard of the outgoing (albeit very well-tested and developed) generation. I understand Google wanted a new warhorse for ICS, rather than the aging Nexus S, to be released relatively quickly, and I'm not saying Google should have waited until quad-cores came out for the next Nexus. But the relative dearth of pure Google phones, especially at the high-end where manufacturers want to show off their 'bonus features' is more than a bit unfortunate.

L boogie

Nice design though it might not be the final product. Anyway, HTC needs to look at previous models and work on the following: battery life, RAM size, improving the camera ( Rezound/Amaze sweet cameras) etc to truly make the Edge an ICS- flavored quad-core powerhouse to be reckoned with. Gotta wonder why HTC isn't messing with the s4 SoC from Qualcomm and what the galaxy s 3 is gonna be packing

Ribbys

Major issue is battery life, and getting LTE on to the SOC to improve it. If this has that, then sure its a good upgrade. If not, a LTE quad score phone will be a battery hog.

If its not LTE, its probably a good buy. I dont like the HTC root access program though.

Gonna go Nexus for my next phone.

taylord

It'll be nice once an android flavor comes out that takes advantage of quad-core devices, but until then 4.0 will probably run equally well on dual core phones like the Galaxy Nexus. I'm still lusting over the GN for my next phone (within the next month or so) but this still looks to be a cool phone.

TBolt

Will 4 cores kill batteries even more?

Mike Brooks

I'm getting so tired of hearing the complaints about battery life, 4g this, extended battery that...
Everyone speculates about how somethings gonna perform before they even test it.
If thats all your concerned about then maybe you shouldnt own a smartphone. get your self a feature phone, with a 1" x 2" screen and carry a laptop with and 4G modem. Everyone wants to complain but in reality no high end phone now or being released gets amazing battery life. i dont care what anyone says. and the people totally jamming those extened batteries on their phones are insane. its UGLY and BULKY. carry a second battery around instead. is it that much of a big deal to just swap it once a day? I refuse to lower my brightness down and shut off everything on my phone to save a couple of minutes or even an hours battery life. I like the way my devices looks and operates and i wouldnt alter it because of that. My Thunderbolt averages between 8 and 16 hours on a battery. and im in a 4G rich area where i could travel in 50 -100 miles in any direction and never lose 4G. on days im off and home and have light use i get an entire day out of a battery (22-23 hours)
So i say we deal with the specs and performance, and keep our power management issues to ourselves... LOL
Just sayin...
AND BTW Im totally getting this phone if it really exist..

TBolt

My question was aimed at the real techies who know whether or not a quad-core is more efficient than dual-core.

Your rant was useless, really.

extremely well

I'm not waiting cuz who knows when/if a T-Mobile ver of this/any quad-core Android with a huge screen will come out (fully 4G capable). I'll be getting the Galaxy S2 in a couple of weeks. And for $50/line quasi-unlimited plan, I *want* to be locked into a contract before T-Mobile is eaten up by AT&T and prices (probably) go up...

cody

they need to get rid of these damn skins ics looks nice as is. looks like i will have to just get a pure google phone if i dont want these skins and its stupid that there is buttons on it.